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Thursday, September 24, 2015
Il Morso Coffee Bars
Il Morso, which means the bite in Italian, is a new, solid form of coffee. Though the concept of coffee being treated like chocolate is hardly new, it's very rarely implemented. Il Morso not only attempts to make a solid coffee/chocolate hybrid, by using cocoa butter with coffee beans, but they're doing it with all natural ingredients and far less sugar than others who have come before them.
There are three different little bites in their current line: Americano, Coffee & Cream and Mocha. They also make a Matcha version with green tea instead of coffee. They use organic ingredients, no emulsifiers and pure cane sugar.
I tried Il Morso at the Fancy Food Show, before they were selling at retail. Now they're available in limited stores and on the web. The company sent me this sampler box so that I could try all the flavors.
An Americano is espresso with a little water in it, to create the same consistency as a standard drip coffee. The Americano Coffee Bar is actually quite simple when it comes to ingredients, just three of them: Espresso Beans, Cocoa Butter and Cane Sugar.
Each little bite of the Americano Coffee Bar, the most intense coffee bar they make, has about 18 mg of caffeine. They're also only 20 calories, partly because they're so small (4 grams) but don't be fooled because there's no milk in there, there's still plenty of fat from the cocoa butter (not a bad thing).
The bar smells like coffee, like coffee grounds, not quite like brewed coffee or espresso. It's woodsy and deep with toffee and charcoal notes. The bite is easy, this is very similar in texture to a chocolate bar. The melt is easy and fast, but not too slick. There's a slight chalky texture, like that sludge at the bottom of a cup of coffee, but this is by far the smoothest coffee item I've had. The sweetness is there from the sugar, but it's very clean and just enough to moderate the more intense bitterness from the coffee.
Though it's a small square, it's quite intense and I don't feel like I would ever want a full bar of this.
The Coffee & Cream Bar comes in at 16 mg of caffeine and 25 calories. This one contains milk powder in addition to the coffee, cocoa butter and sugar. You can see from the picture though, this is not milk chocolate, it is still very intensely coffee, but the milk is there to bring a more mild note to the bar without adding more sugar.
It's funny that it does not smell as strongly of coffee as the Americano. It tastes, though, really much the same. The bitterness, the sort of acidic note of strong coffee, that's all there, but it's just slightly milder. It's also smoother and has a lighter finish to it.
The Mocha Bar is the same as Coffee & Cream with the addition of some 70% chocolate. Sometimes I feel like chocolate bars with coffee in them are just that, chocolate bars first. Here, this is fully a coffee bar with chocolate in there. This one comes in with only 15 calories and 14 mg of caffeine.
This bar is absolutely the smoothest. It's also the least sweet, if that's possible. The coffee notes are most forward and the least bitter of the three bars, but no less rounded with the toffee and roasted notes. The chocolate is a smooth background with a hint of brownies and bananas.
The final bar is not coffee but all, it's their only Tea Bar, the Matcha Tea Bar. This one has four ingredients: matcha, cocoa butter, milk powder and sugar. It's also 20 calories but has only 7 mg of caffeine.
It's quite green and smells like grass clippings, pistachios, jasmine and tea. The texture is smooth, but the whole effect of the tea is a little perfumey and soapy. There's bit of bitterness that comes out after the cocoa butter and milk has dissipated. The floral notes linger long after the bar is gone, so it's much fresher feeling than the coffee bars.
Overall, I think these are fantastic. I love the intensity of the bites, though they feel less like candy and more like a snack because there's so little sugar in them. I'm also glad they're so satisfying, I never feel the need to eat more than two at a time, because I wouldn't want to over consume caffeine, especially late in the day. It's a great option for travelers as well, if you need a little boost. They don't seem to have the same problems with cocoa butter bloom as chocolate does, or at least the few that I traveled with melted and reformed pretty well.
The packaging is lovely and has a lot of information packed on to the little squares, which I appreciate. I don't see myself buying these often by the box, but they would make great favors or gifts for those who truly love coffee. If I could find a candy shop that has them by the piece, I'd be willing to pay $1.75 each for them ... based on how big they taste, not how big they are.
There's no statement about nuts or other allergens on the packaging. These are very pricey, though premium coffee drinks are also pricey and these are just more portable.
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POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:33 pm All Natural • Candy • Review • Caffeinated • Chocolate • Coffee • Organic • White Chocolate • 9-Yummy • United States • Comments (1)
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Ice Chips: Spearmint
Ice Chips Candy is a line of sweets made almost entirely of xylitol. They come in 20 different varieties. Since this was a new product to me, I figured I'd start with Ice Chips: Spearmint.
The candy comes in a tin that's pretty much the same as the one Altoids come in. The selling point, I'm guessing, of this mint is the fact that it's made with xylitol, a natural sugar alcohol that is not only "sugarless" but also has been shown in clinical tests that it does not promote tooth decay. Though it does have some calories (about 1/3 fewer than other mints made with sugar), it's not quickly digested by the body so has a very low glycemic index. The xylitol comes from birch trees, not corn like some xylitol products, so the makers say that it's GMO free. It's also vegan, gluten free, soy free and vegan.
Though I picked one of the most pedestrian flavors they offer, the candies also come in cherry, licorice, margarita, pumpkin spice and root beer float flavors.
The chips are, well, chip-like. Think of it like peanut brittle, it's a thin sheet of a sort of hard candy-like mint that's been shattered into variously sized bits. Some are as big as a dime but most are more like a small tablet about 1/3 of an inch across.
They're hard to photograph, which is why I left them in the tin for this shoot. They're not colored, not opaque, not quite translucent. Not quite milky, so they don't qualify as white.
If you've had xylitol candies before you know that like most sugar alcohols it's a little cool on the tongue. This works very well with a flavor like spearmint or peppermint, which already has the cooling effect of the mint oils. The dissolve is interesting, but even more interesting is the fact that it's crunchy, like a toffee only without the buttery notes.
Overall, the unique texture and excellent flavor profile makes these quite appealing. Personally, I find eating too much xylitol a problem (it can make some people gassy), so it's not something I would eat as a candy, only reserve it as a breath freshener.
I'm curious about the other flavors, especially Root Beer Float and Cinnamon.
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POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:26 pm All Natural • Candy • Review • Mints • 7-Worth It • United States • Comments (2)
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Lindt HELLO Pretzel Bites
The last of the three new Lindt HELLO Bites collection that I picked up for review is the blue-themed HELLO Pretzel Bites.
The concept is truly simple, a small, spherical pretzel is coated in milk chocolate. (The image on the front shows pretzel twists, but they're not pieces of pretzels, they're actual full spheres.)They're very similar to the Toffee Bites, not that innovative, this product is definitely an American take on a standard confection.
The cheeky text on the front of the package reads: HELLO, I'm a handful [of] Pretzel Bites. You be the sweet, I'll be the salty. (Nice to Sweet You)
Like the Toffee Bites and the Minty Bites, the chocolate here is excellent. Though it's very sweet, it's immediately creamy and smooth with a strong hint of cocoa. The salty pretzel center is crispy and light with enough crunch to offset the sweetness of the coating.
Still ... I wish they were dark chocolate. Or maybe a mix of the two would be fun.
Like Minty Bites and Toffee Bites, these are made in the USA. They're on the expensive side for chocolate covered pretzels, and I don't see myself buying them often, but of the three versions, this was my favorite and the one that I finished first.
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POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:16 pm Candy • Morselization • Lindt • Chocolate • Cookie • 9-Yummy • United States • Target • Comments (2)
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Lindt Hello Toffee Bites
Lindt Hello Toffee Bites is the second review I have for the line of Lindt's HELLO Bites line. They're pretty simple, just milk chocolate covered toffee bits.
Now that I've purchased the full set, I've noticed the packaging for the line. It's an odd design style. The HELLO line is a very friendly, with that hipster coffee-house style mix of hand printing and script. The embossed Lindt logo, on the other hand, is old-world elegance. The rest of the package is just an image of the product. In this case it's a bowl of toffee bites and some pieces of toffee (I know, the photo makes it look like they might be pats of butter). Each of the packages for the HELLO Bites has a different metallic color on the top band. For the toffee, it's bronze, for the mint it was green and for the pretzel line, it's a light blue (which is consistent with the M&Ms Pretzel which is also blue).
The pieces a little on the small size, mostly the size of a garden pea. The milk chocolate is very light in appearance, like the Minty Bites, there's no indication of the cacao content. The coating is very creamy, with no detectable waxy glaze to interrupt the immediately melty chocolate.
The chocolate to toffee ratio is very balanced, so there's enough of both to give full flavor development and texture. The toffee is crispy and has a good crunch. There's a hint of butter and a touch of salt with some good toasty flavors to balance it. The milk chocolate has a lot of dairy notes, but not so much of the dried milk flavors that I don't care for in a lot of Swiss-style milk chocolates.
These are easy to munch but also such high quality that it's fun to savor them as well ... the chocolate has a delightful melt and the consistency of the toffee is great if you're a cruncher or a dissolver. The key here is that this is a simple item that can be done poorly with cheap ingredients and no attention to detail ... instead Lindt has delivered an excellent product and actually surpassed my expectations.
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Thursday, September 3, 2015
Milk Chocolate M&Ms Pumpkin Spice Latte
There are two new flavors of M&Ms out for fall this year. M&Ms Milk Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Latte is a Target exclusive and M&Ms Milk Chocolate Pecan Pie is a Walmart exclusive.
I picked up the Pumpkin Spice Latte, though I admit I was a little confused about how different this was from the Pumpkin Spice Milk Chocolate M&Ms from 2013.
It's always a little odd to pick up "seasonal" items when I live in Los Angeles. The package here shows the brown M&M all bundled up with steamy drink. It was 96 degrees in the shade when I got back to my car with the purchase (it's also hot in a lot of other places around the country, it was still August when these hit the shelves).
The pieces are large, as all of the specialty flavors lately have turned out to be. They come in orange, cream and dark brown. (The earlier 2013 Pumpkin Spice were orange, green and dark brown.)
The ingredients list no specifics about the flavors, there are no lists of spices and definitely no actual pumpkin or coffee. What I expected to be different about this variety is more of the latte beverage experience. So, I'm hoping for creamy milk notes, maybe some espresso and of course the spice mix known as pumpkin.
The flavor combination here is immediately cinnamon with a touch of coffee and chocolate. The spices are warm, but not very evenly balanced, it's almost all cinnamon and not much in the way of nutmeg or ginger. The coffee notes keep it from being as sweet as some others, though it's a little inconsistent. The chocolate itself is grainy and not terribly creamy. In general the chocolate quality on M&Ms is disappointing as a chocolate item, but fine as a candy.
I'm a little confused how this whole coffee craze can come about and there are no coffee M&Ms, but some how a beverage that includes coffee can actually get the M&M treatment.
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Monday, August 31, 2015
Lindt Hello Minty Bites
Lindt has expanded their friendly HELLO line of chocolates with a handful of panned products. The Lindt Hello Minty Bites come in a stand up bag that holds 5.3 ounces. They're pretty much the most expensive chocolates you can buy at Target, but also a very reliably good brand of chocolate.
I picked up mine on sale for $4 a bag, though they're usually about $4.50. The package does a good job of vaguely describing the product: Dark Chocolate Covered Mint Cubes (natural flavor). But the description on the front, the propaganda on the back, and the images do noting to show what the product actually is. I assumed they were a fondant center, like Junior Mints or York Peppermint Patties. Instead, they are unique, which is a good thing to set them apart from other offerings, but also took a bit to get used to.
The dark chocolate coating is glossy and creamy and pretty thick. The chocolate is not very dark, there's no percentage on the package and does have added milk fat and milk. The pieces are not completely spherical; they're more oblate like M&Ms. The centers are like a jelly. They're made from sugar, apple, pineapple fibers, sodium alginate, green tea extract, dicalcium phosphate, citric acid and natural mint. Can you imagine that? Yeah, it's a little weird.
The center reminds me a little bit of the Brookside fruit pieces, but they're a little grainy. The flavor is only lightly minty and rather authentically like mint leaves. But there's a tangy component ... so the effect is like a mojito, a little citrusy and a little minty.
I don't know what to think of them. I didn't love the, but I had no trouble eating the package eventually. The chocolate is ridiculously smooth and creamy, but after eating Brach's & M&Ms chocolates for so long, sometimes I forget that chocolate in these types of candies can actually be really good. Of the three varieties of Hello Bites, these are the only ones with a dark chocolate coating (the others are Toffee Bites and Pretzel Bites), which is what I usually prefer. If you're the type of person who likes the Brookside Fruits or Trader Joe's Powerberries, these might be something you'd like.
Lindt's new Hello Bites line is made in the USA. Most other Lindt products (at least the ones that I've reviewed) are made in Germany. Though the front of the package says natural flavor, there are artificial flavors (vanillin) and other ingredients like sodium alginate and dicalcium phosphate - they're not necessarily "artificial" but not necessarily ordinary.
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POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:34 pm Candy • Morselization • Review • Lindt • Chocolate • Jelly Candy • Mints • 7-Worth It • United States • Target • Comments (2)
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Mega Smarties 'n Creme
A couple of months ago on Candyology 101 we were talking about a new product called Mega Smarties 'n Creme. It's a layered Smartie candy with a creamy
The roll is substantial, both in the packaging and the contents. I was initially shocked at the price of $2.49 for a roll, but it is 2.25 ounces. The wrapper is a paper/foil style that is easy to open and actually re-closes pretty well, too.
The pieces are 1 inch in diameter. I pulled out some Giant Smarties I had sitting around as a comparison in the photo. There's a vanilla note to the pieces once they're unwrapped, but only from afar.
The candies come in five colors/flavors. In a little diversion from the standard Smarties, there are blue ones in there. The disks remind me a lot of game pieces or poker chips. One side is lightly colored and flavored, the other side is white. I can't tell if it's a distinct flavor of its own.
Purple is Grape and largely floral in flavor. It's lightly tangy, but no actual grape flavor is in there. The floral notes are on the violet side of things.
Orange was disappointingly bland.
Yellow is Peach and by far the most tart of the array but not terribly peachy.
Blue is Blueberry, another floral flavor, but there is a light tart and jammy note in there. It actually ended up being my favorite flavor of the group.
Pink is Strawberry which is rather mild, which I think most people would be disappointed by.
Though I found them pleasant enough, there was a weird "B vitamin" note that I had trouble getting around. Though they're certainly better tasting that Flintstone's Chewables, at least then I'd be getting my RDAs.
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POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:14 pm Candy • Review • Ce De Candies • Compressed Dextrose • 6-Tempting • United States • Comments (1)
Monday, July 6, 2015
Brach's Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bites
Brach's has reintroduced their whole line of chocolate panned candies over the past two years. They've redone their classic Bridge Mix and now have several varieties of chocolate covered nuts. One of the surprising new items is Brach's Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bites.
The gussetted, resealable bag holds a half of a pound. Like most other Brach's products, the description on the package is only contained in the product name ... nothing else to go on except the very long ingredients list.
The image on the bag shows some chocolate pieces, and then a cross section of the actual candies ... sitting next to that is a rustic pretzel nugget and a little square of caramel. That is really not what the product is.
The little spheres are a great size, about the same size as a garbanzo bean or hazelnut. The milk chocolate coating is shiny and the bag had a nice sweet scent, a little on the milky side. The pieces have a good crunch, the pretzel center isn't too hard or crumbly. The pretzel flavor was good, not too much of the washed crust that can get kind of bitter, and no big bits of salt. But upon eating the pieces, this is where the caramel part comes in. The caramel is actually little shards mixed into the milk chocolate. So at first it's just a pretzel with some milk chocolate, but after chewing, the chocolate melts away and the starchy pretzel dissolves ... and what was left was some sort of tacky residue of hard caramel. It was weird and kind of waxy and unpleasant.
So, after a while I took to letting the milk chocolate melt away instead of crunching them up, but that was unsatisfying because then my pretzel would get mushy before the caramel bits were all gone. I've had other confections like almonds, that had a little toffee coating before the milk chocolate, I'm not sure why that wasn't the process here.
I'll pass on these in the future, which is too bad because it's a unique selling proposition in the rather crowded field of morselized products.
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POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:28 pm Candy • Morselization • Review • Brach's • Ferrara Pan • Caramel • Chocolate • Cookie • 5-Pleasant • United States • Walgreen's • Comments (0)
Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.


text:
They were staying in a VIP room on the 20th floor of the Xiāoshān Hospital. VIP, I learned, meant a room to yourself. I had been in Chinese hospitals before, where calculating math problems is a successful way to relieve a certain fear: If the population of China is 1.36 billion people and 94% of said population lives in the eastern half of the country (a rough guestimate), and the ratio of people to land area is the same as that of people to space in a hospital at any given moment (that I made up), then: a.) how many people will overhear (eavesdrop) as I struggle to communicate my symptoms of a whatever ailment, as well as my drinking habits and sexual activity (foreigners are considered to be quite "open") to a doctor who cannot speak English, and b.) what are the chances that you will see one of them ever again? 2,690 more words
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So I've probably cried at least three times in the past two days because my family is the sweetest. Last night we went to our last KTV and Mama and Mary sang a song to send me off and I ugly cried hardcore. 273 more words
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Or, in Chinese, it go without say. It 'go' whether it was yesterday, today or tomorrow. We don't say 'I go; I went; I am going; I will go', we say, 'I go, I go, I go, I go'. 259 more words
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Sleepovers are easy when you add a trundle. Easily stored under the bed when not in use, the trundle is the ideal way to store an additional mattress or convert into storage drawers as needed. The Santa Cruz has a dark cherry finish and brushed nickel knobs. Used for both twin and full beds.
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Days Inn Manning
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Congaree N.P. and Santee
... Also, all but one trail was flooded and even sections of the boardwalk path were under water, from recent floods. We walked as far as we could, looking at old growth hardwood forest and squirrels.
Then set off and arrived at Santee State Park. John spotted turkey vultures nearby. Beautiful wooded campground next to Lake Marion, largest lake in South Carolina, built by damming the Santee River in the 1940s. Warm weather at last. So good to be able to live outdoors ...
Day 2 Travel
... hr rather than 6 1/2. This hampton inn is also nice...not as upgraded as the stafford one ( "only" 1 TV!) but still good. We had dinner across the street at the Captains Quarters. A step up from a chain but a LITTLE pricey for what it was ($90). Steak/prime rib was decent and chocolate cake we shared for dessert was very good. If we stayed here again, would try a different place but we were tired and this was fine! Rm ...
FL to GA to SC
... but instead, right through the center of downtown we went. At one point, I had to remind myself to relax and breathe.
Traffic was heavy on all three lanes of I 95 going North; mostly cars, with some RVs and a few trailer trucks. There were a few of those huge RV buses that were being driven by the old and infirm. One guy (I have yet to see a woman drive one of the diesel pushers) was going down the middle ...
Staying at Santee, South Carolina
Finished half of our drive to Florida and we are staying at South Carolina for the night. Only 6 more hours of driving to go! Kids are sitting in the back of the van each playing on an iPad and singing the same song as always..."Are we there yet?" We'll reach Orlando tomorrow night and finally relax after a tiring 2 days of ...
Long drive to South Carolina
... we got within 60 miles of the hotel we were caught in a traffic jam due to an accident on I26. Fortunately it only delayed us for 20 mins and we were on our way again.
Got to the hotel at 5.30, then popped over the road to a restaurant called Shoneys. The server was annoying as he kept asking us what we wanted and if we wonted this or that even before we had a chance to look at the menu. In the end Chris chose fish & chips and I had chicken pot ...


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Quality accommodation for individuals, families and groups, hill walkers, nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts. We are a social enterprise supporting the local community and local employment.
A modern purpose built centre located in the heart of the Mourne Mountains, between Spelga Dam and The Silent Valley, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
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Posted on 30 April 2014
- 14:12
Our Under-18s clinched top spot in the domestic standings with two games to spare on Tuesday by inflicting a 7-2 defeat on a young Chelsea side at Cobham – booking a date with Everton in the end-of-season play-offs.
Academy Manager John, while impressed with the lads' campaign, reinforced how his over-riding philosophy of bringing young players through the ranks remains at the forefront of his mind in the wake of the triumph.
"The boys have now won the league which I'm extremely pleased about, but it's always been about developing players at this level and that hasn't changed," John said.
"We mustn't lose focus on our overall goal which is to ensure the continued development of our young players beyond youth football."
John also preferred to look at Tuesday's victory at Chelsea in isolation to the rest of the campaign: "It's quite a peculiar feeling because our opponents obviously had to play in the FA Youth Cup final less than 24 hours before playing us, so it was frustrating but understandable we couldn't play their top eleven and really test our players to the pinnacle," he said.
"But in the grand scheme of things, while perhaps one of our best and most testing fixtures hasn't panned out as both teams would have wanted because of fixture congestion, we are where we are based on our results over the entire season and now we must continue to push on."
Josh Onomah bagged a brace on Tuesday while Lloyd Ross was also on the scoresheet, but it was a four-goal showing from Shayon Harrison that left our Academy boss particularly pleased.
The forward converted from a variety of different positions in and around the Blues' penalty box – and John revealed that clinical performance was as a result of much hard work on the training ground.
"Both Shayon and Will Miller, who didn't play on Tuesday, have been working so hard on their finishing and being more efficient in front of goal in terms of their shooting accuracy – and with that will come goals," John explained.
"I was really pleased for Shayon on Tuesday. His goals were the result of a lot of labour and a lot of focus and attention in training and hopefully he can keep that going."
4 October 2015
Kieran McKenna praised our Under-18s for the character they showed in Saturday's 4-3 defeat to Chelsea, but was left to rue the manner in which we allowed the Blues to take the upper hand in the second half.
2 May 2015
Today marks the 100-year anniversary of a match that illustrated again how football can bring people together in the most testing of times - and at the heart of it, one of the most influential figures in our history, John Cameron.
7 April 2015
Ugo Ehiogu praised the central midfield pairing of Luke Amos and Harry Winks after Monday's goalless draw with Chelsea in the Barclays Under-21 Premier League.
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|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|17 Jul 2003
|Filing date
|4 Apr 2002
|Priority date
|11 Jan 2002
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Matthew Miller, Ingemar Cox
|Original Assignee
|Nec Research Institute, Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (5), Referenced by (25), Classifications (15), Legal Events (5)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
[0001] This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. �119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 60/347,366, filed Jan. 11, 2002, and U.S. Provisional Application Serial No. 60/347,428, filed Jan. 11, 2002. The full disclosures of both applications are hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
[0002] 1. Field of Invention
[0003] The invention is related to the field of digital watermarking, and more particularly to informed techniques for coding a watermark message and embedding it into a cover work.
[0004] 2. Description of Related Art
[0005] In recent years, several researchers have recognized that watermarking with blind detection can be modeled as communication with side-information at the transmitter. This has led to the development of informed coding, in which code words or signals used to represent messages are dependent on the cover work, and informed embedding, in which signals are shaped according to the cover work before embedding. Some researchers have employed informed coding to embed large data payloads in images—on the order of 1000 or more bits—but their methods involve only simple forms of informed embedding. Furthermore, as most of these methods are based on some form of lattice quantization, they exhibit only limited robustness against simple valumetric scaling, such as changes in image contrast or audio volume.
[0006] The problem remains of how to embed a large-payload watermark message in a digitally encoded work in a manner which will be resilient against typical post-watermarking effects, e.g., signal noise, filtering, scaling, and/or compression, while at the same time maintaining acceptable levels of perceptual fidelity to the original cover work.
[0007] It is an object of the present invention to accomplish the informed coding of a watermark message, comprising the definition of a code in which each message is represented by a plurality of alternate code words, the identification of the set of code words that represent a given message, and the embedding the code word in that set which will result in the smallest distortion of the cover work. The code is defined by a modified trellis coding technique of the present invention.
[0008] It is further an object of the present invention to accomplish perceptual shaping of a watermark message code by modifying the code in the embedding process to conform to a predetermined perceptual "slack", in order to minimize the perceptual impact of the watermark message on the cover work.
[0009] It is further an object of the present invention to accomplish the informed embedding a watermark message code in a cover work to efficiently and reliably embed the watermark message code in the cover work while limiting the perceptual impact on the cover work. This is accomplished by finding an incorrect message likely to be extracted from the cover work, and calculating a measure of the probability that the incorrect watermark message code would not be extracted from the cover work. If this measure is less than a predetermined value, the cover work is modified to ensure that the incorrect watermark message is less likely to be extracted. The embedding process is reiterated until only the correct watermark message is likely to be extracted. To improve the performance of the watermark message code, these techniques may be combined.
[0010] These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the apparatus and methods of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals designate the same elements across the several views, where:
[0011]FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of an informed embedder.
[0012]FIG. 2 illustrates a traditional Trellis code structure.
[0013]FIG. 3 indicates the terms of an image's 8�8 block DCT used in the exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
[0014]FIG. 4 is a Voronoi diagram, illustrating a geometric interpretation of the watermark embedding region.
[0015]FIG. 5 illustrates the behavior of the embedding algorithm of the present invention in the Voronoi diagram of FIG. 4.
[0016]FIG. 6 is a schematic illustration of an informed coder.
[0017]FIG. 7 illustrates a modified Trellis code structure according to the present invention.
[0018]FIG. 8 illustrates a message-specific modified Trellis code structure according to the present invention.
[0019]FIG. 9 illustrates a single-state trellis code structure having multiple parallel paths.
[0020]FIG. 10 is a graph of experimental results of bit error rate v. number of arcs, using a fixed number of states.
[0021]FIG. 11 is a graph of experimental results of bit error rate v. number of states, using a fixed number of codewords.
[0022]FIG. 12 is a graph of experimental results of message error rate v. the standard deviation of Gaussian noise added.
[0023]FIG. 13 is a graph of experimental results of message error rate v. the standard deviation of Gaussian filtering.
[0024]FIG. 14 is a graph of experimental results of message error rate v. a reducing scaling factor.
[0025]FIG. 15 is a graph of experimental results of message error rate v. an increasing scaling factor.
[0026]FIG. 16 is a graph of experimental results of message error rate v. increasing levels of JPEG compression, measured by a quanization matrix multiplier.
[0027]FIG. 17 is a flowchart illustrating an informed embedding method according to the present invention.
[0028]FIG. 18 is a flow chart illustrating an informed coding method according to the present invention.
[0029]FIG. 1 illustrates the basic idea of an informed watermarking system 100. Here, watermark embedding is viewed as a three-step process. First, the source message 102 to be embedded is input to an encoder 104, and encoded as a message signal 106, wm. Second, the signal 106 is input to a modifier 108, and modified in preparation for embedding, yielding a modified signal 110, wa. Finally, the modified signal 110 is added to the original cover work 112, co, to obtain the watermarked work 114, cw. The message 102 will be comprised of symbols drawn from an alphabet. A binary alphabet of 1 and 0 is typical, but other characters may be used. The cover work may comprise an image, a video clip, an audio clip, or any other digitally encoded content. An image is often described herein as an exemplary cover work, however, the invention is not limited to the watermarking of images, and those skilled in the art will recognize the interchangeability of content types.
[0030] In blind embedding, the modification step is performed independently of the cover work. In such cases, just a simple, global scaling can be used. In informed embedding, by contrast, the modification is a function of the cover work 112, and the message signal 106, illustrated by link 116.
[0031] Since complete information about the cover work 112 is available, an informed watermarking system 100 has complete control over the final, watermarked work. That is, it can select any work as cw by letting wa=cw−co. The task is to find a work that satisfies two conflicting criteria: 1) cw should be similar enough to co to be perceptually indistinguishable, and 2) cw should be close enough to wm to be detected as containing the watermark, even after distortion by subsequent processing.
[0032] In practice, an informed embedding algorithm can be implemented using methods for estimating perceptual distance and watermark robustness. The algorithm may then attempt to either 1) maximize the estimated robustness while keeping a constant perceptual distance, or 2) minimize the perceptual distance while keeping a constant robustness. Most watermarking applications are best served by embedders that maintain constant robustness, and the illustrative embodiment of an embedding algorithm is therefore disclosed using the latter constraint. Some applications, however, can demand a constant fidelity, and optimization according to the former constraint could then be achieved without departing from the scope of the invention.
[0033] In order to describe the exemplary watermark embedding algorithm according to the present invention, first the detection algorithm must be described. More than one correlation-based detection scheme may be suitable, as discussed in Cox, et al., Digital Watermarking, however the methods of the present invention are not limited to correlation-based schemes. Next, a measure of robustness must be defined. Two embedding methods that seek to obtain a specific value of this robustness measure while keeping the mean squared error low between the original cover work 112 and watermarked work 114 are described. The mean square error is used as a measure of the perceptual distance between the original and watermarked works. The invention is not limited to this measure, as other measures known in the art, such as the Watson Distance, are suitable as well. The first of these two methods is general, and can be applied with a variety of different detection algorithms. The second is specific to the detector described, and is substantially faster than the general method. Experiments show that this second embedding method yields substantially better results than a simple, blind embedder.
[0034] Detection Algorithm
[0035] An exemplary watermarking system is built around a trellis-code, as illustrated in FIG. 2. This code is similar to that used in the E_TRELLIS8/D_TRELLIS8 watermarking system defined in Cox, et al., Digital Watermarking, hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. Each path through the trellis 118, originating at node 119, labeled A0, represents a specific message. Since two arcs 120 a, 120 b, exit each node, there are 2L possible paths, where L is the length of the paths. Thus, the system encodes L bits. In an exemplary embodiment, L=1380.
[0036] Each arc 120 in the trellis 118 is labeled with a randomly-generated, length N reference vector. Each path, and thus each message, is coded with a length L�N vector that is the concatenation of the labels for the arcs it contains. In the exemplary embodiment, N=12.
[0037] An exemplary detection algorithm comprises the following steps. The image is converted into the 8�8 block-DCT domain 122 of FIG. 3. All N-frequency AC terms of the DCT blocks 124 are placed into a single, length L�N vector, in random order. This is referred to as the extracted vector. The DCT terms used are shown in FIG. 3. A Viterbi decoding algorithm is used to identify the most likely path through the trellis 118. For correlation detectors, this is equivalent to finding the L�N vector that has the highest correlation with the extracted vector. The message that is represented by the highest-correlation path is identified as the source message 102.
[0038] Note that this exemplary detection algorithm's method for obtaining an extracted vector is not the only one possible. Alternative methods include, but are not limited to: using the pixel values themselves as the values in the extracted vector, using correlations between the image and several predefined patterns, using coefficients from the full-image DCT, using coefficients from a wavelet decomposition of the image, using the magnitudes of Fourier coefficients, and using the phases of Fourier coefficients. A similar range of possibilities exists for media other than images, such as audio, video, and solid models.
[0039] This detection algorithm does not attempt to determine whether the work contains a watermark. It simply maps every possible work into an L-bit message, regardless of whether the work has had a watermark embedded. In large payload applications it is usually not important for the detector to determine whether a watermark is present, since most combinations of bit values are not meaningful. For example, suppose the system is used to embed strings of 172 ASCII characters. An unwatermarked work will yield an unintelligible string, so it can easily be recognized as unwatermarked when the string is displayed.
[0040] Alternatively, if the detector needs to determine the presence of watermarks, some number of bits can be used to contain an error detection checksum or signature of the source message 102. If the signature does not match the source message 102, the detector announces that there is no watermark. This reduces the payload by a small amount, but it yields a detector with an easily predicted false positive probability. For example, if 20 bits are used for the signature, then the probability of a false positive is 2−20.
[0041] Robustness
[0042] Since the exemplary detector does not test for the presence of a watermark, previous measures of robustness that use correlation coefficient to test whether or not a mark is present are not appropriate. Instead of estimating the likelihood that a watermarked work will be detected as unwatermarked, an estimate of the likelihood that the watermarked work will be detected as containing the wrong source message 102 is required.
[0043] Consider a simple system in which there are only two possible messages 102, represented by two different vectors. One of the vectors is denoted g, and the other b. When presented with a work, c, the detector returns the message associated with g if g�c>b�c, where
[0044] is the correlation between g and c.
[0045] Vector g is the good vector, the one to be embedded into a cover work 112, co. Vector b is a bad vector, one to avoid the watermarked work being confused with. The task is to estimate the chances that a proposed watermarked work 114, cw, will, after corruption by subsequent processing, be detected as containing the message g rather than the message b. More precisely, a value is needed that is monotonically related to the probability that message g will be correctly detected in a corrupted version of the watermarked work 114, cw.
[0046] The assumption is made that the distortions applied to the watermarked work 114 after watermark embedding can be modeled as the addition of white Gaussian noise. Thus, assume that a detector will receive cwn=cw+n, where n is a length L�N vector whose elements are drawn independently from a Gaussian distribution with variance σn 2. The probability that g will be detected in cwn is
[0047] where r is a random scalar value drawn from a unit-variance, Gaussian distribution. Clearly, the larger the value of
[0048] the higher the probability that it will be greater than σnr, and the greater the chances that the watermark g will be correctly detected in cwn. R0( ), then, is the robustness measure for a simple, two-message watermarking system. Conceptually, R0( ) is the inverse of the probability that a given bad message, b, would be confused with a given good message, g, from within a watermarked cover work, cw.
[0049] To extend this measure to larger payloads, take the minimum of R0 over all possible erroneous message vectors, b1 . . . b2 L −1. Thus,
[0050]FIG. 4 illustrates a geometric interpretation of the embedding region that results when we specify that R(cw,g) must be greater than or equal to a given value. The figure shows a Voronoi diagram representing the detection regions for various messages. Each point on the diagram corresponds to some possible work. Regions 126, 128, 130, define the message vectors that would be decoded, e.g., g, b1, b2, respectively, from any work lying in those regions.
[0051] By specifying a minimum value for R(cw,g), we are insisting that cw must lie a certain distance from the edge of region 126, the detection region for g. The region of acceptable robustness is indicated by the shaded area 132.
[0052]FIG. 4 also illustrates the behavior of an ideal embedder using this robustness measure. The open circle 134 corresponds to the unwatermarked cover work 112, and the filled circle 136 corresponds to the closest possible watermarked work 114 with acceptable robustness.
[0053] General Embedding Algorithm
[0054] In practice, it is difficult to implement an algorithm to find the optimal watermarked work, as illustrated in FIG. 4. Instead, it is more practical to use a sub-optimal, iterative algorithm. First, a general version of this algorithm is presented that can be used with a wide variety of watermark coding schemes. Next, a version specifically designed for the trellis-coded watermarks is presented.
[0055] Assume a black-box watermark encoder, W(m), that maps a sequence of bits, m, into a watermark signal, wm. Further, assume a black-box watermark detector, D(c), that maps a work, c, into the sequence of bits corresponding to the watermark signal with which the work has the highest correlation. No assumptions are made about how these two functions work internally.
[0056] Given a cover work 112, co, a source message 102 to embed, m, and a target robustness value Rt, the algorithm proceeds as follows: 1) Set g=W(m) and cw=co; 2) find the signal b≠g that minimizes R0(cw,g,b); 3) if R0(cw,g,b)≧Rt, then terminate; 4) Otherwise, modify cw so that R0(cw,g,b)=Rt, and go to step 2.
[0057] The modification of cw is performed as follows:
[0058] The new cw yields R0(cw,g,b) exactly equal to Rt, while having a minimum Euclidian distance from the previous cw.
[0059] The operation of this algorithm is shown geometrically in FIG. 5. In the first iteration, cw lies in the detection region for b3, so b=b3 in step 2, and cw is moved to a point beyond the boundary 140 between g and b3. Note that this interim point 138 is located on a line 142 parallel to the boundary 140, offset by a distance proportional to Rt.
[0060] In the second iteration, b=b4, and g is moved into the detection region for g. In the final iteration, the closest bad vector is still b4, but R0(cw,g,b4) is already satisfactory, so the algorithm terminates. FIG. 5 clearly illustrates that this algorithm is sub-optimal, since it does not yield the optimal point 136 identified in FIG. 4. Nevertheless, it is practical to implement.
[0061] The identification of b in step 2 depends on the method of coding. For most codes, it is not easy. A simple, Monte Carlo approach can be applied by letting b=W(D(cw+n)), where n is some random noise. If a small amount of noise is added to cw, and the detector returns a message other than m, then b is likely to yield a low value of R0. If there exist any vectors that yield values of R0 below the target value, Rt, then b is likely to be one of them.
[0062] The best amount of noise to add changes as the embedding process progresses. In the first iteration, when cw=co, it is unlikely that D(cw)=m, so we need not add any noise at all to find the nearest bad vector. This will remain true through several iterations, until D(cw)=m. At that point, the closest bad vectors are likely to yield very low values of R0, so we need add only a small amount of noise to find them. As cw is modified to be robust against confusion with these-vectors, the remaining bad vectors yield higher values of R0, and thus require the addition of more noise. In general, if too little noise is added, W(D(cw+n)) will equal g. If too much noise is added, W(D(cw+n)) has a high chance of producing a vector for which Ro( ) is much larger than the minimum available value.
[0063] Therefore the amount of noise added is dynamically adjusted at each iteration. At the beginning, the standard deviation of the noise, σn, is 0, so no noise is added. Whenever W(D(cw+n)) yields g, σn is increased by a small, fixed amount, δ. When W(D(cw+n)) yields a bad vector, b, but R0(cw,g,b) is greater than or equal to Rt, we decrease σn by δ. If W(D(cw+n)) yields a bad vector, b, and R0(cw, g, b)<Rt, we modify cw and leave D unchanged. In an exemplary embodiment of the method, δ=0.1.
[0064] Since this Monte Carlo approach does not guarantee to find the b that minimizes R0(cw, g, b) in each iteration, a preferred algorithm should not be terminated the first time that R0(cw,g,b) is greater than or equal to the target value. There might still be some other b for which R0(cw, g, b)<Rt. Therefore a count is maintained of the number of consecutive b's found for which R0(cw, g, b)>=Rt. The algorithm terminates when this count reaches a specified limit. In an exemplary embodiment of the method, the limit was set at 100.
[0065] Thus, the preferred, general version of our informed embedding algorithm is shown in FIG. 17. At the start 154, g=W(m), cw=co, σn=0, and j=0. At 156, b=W(D(cw+n)), where n is a random vector with each element drawn independently from a Gaussian distribution with variance σn 2. If, at 158, b=g, then σn←σn+δ at 160, and go back 156. The measure of robustness is computed at 162. If, at 164, R0(cw,g,b)<Rt, then modify cw at 166, according to Equations (1.1). The value of j is reset to zero at 168, and the method returns to 156. If R0(cw,g,b)>Rt at 164, then increment j at 170. If j<100 at 172, then σn←σn−δ at 174 and go back to 156. Otherwise, terminate at 176.
[0066] Embedding Algorithm for Trellis Codes
[0067] The general method outlined above is very slow, as it can often take many thousands of iterations to terminate. When implemented with a trellis-coded watermarking system of the present invention, each iteration requires running a Viterbi decoding algorithm on the entire work. This, in turn, requires performing L�A number of length N correlations, where A is the number of arcs in each step of the trellis.
[0068] Thus, instead of adding noise to cw and running the detector in each iteration, a modified version of the Viterbi decoding algorithm is used that produces probabilistic results. Normally, the Viterbi algorithm maintains a table that indicates the correlation between an extracted vector, v, and the vectors for the paths up to all the states in a given step of the trellis. The modified decoder of the present invention adds a random number to each value in this table before proceeding to the next step of the trellis. This means that the decoder might return a path other than the one that yields the highest correlation with v.
[0069] The behavior of the modified Viterbi decoder is similar to the results of adding noise to cw before running the detector, but it is not identical. Nevertheless, the performance of an exemplary embodiment of an informed embedder according to the present invention was unaffected by the difference. By using the modified Viterbi decoder, the running time can be significantly reduced because the correlations for the arcs of the trellis need not be recomputed every time the detector is used. Instead, they need only be recomputed when cw is modified.
[0070] The embedding algorithm of the present invention, as described supra, uses information contained in the cover work during the modification stage. However, each message is represented by a unique codeword that is independent of the work. Better results can be obtained if the coding process itself is a function of the cover work. Therefore, we now consider informed coding, in which each message is mapped into a set of alternative codewords, and the choice of which codeword to embed is determined by information contained in the cover work. This is illustrated conceptually in FIG. 6, particularly link 144 showing the connection between the input cover work 112 with the encoder 104.
[0071] A modification of a traditional trellis code can produce what is known as a dirty-paper code, or a code having alternate codewords corresponding to a single message. See, Costa, Writing on Dirty Paper, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, Vol. 29, pp. 439-442, 1983. The present code allows a straightforward application of the informed embedding method described supra.
[0072]FIG. 2 shows an example of a traditional trellis 118 code. In this code, two arcs 120 a, 120 b, exit from each state. Bold arcs 120 b correspond to a 1 bit in the coded message, and non-bold arcs 120 a correspond to a 0 bit. This traditional trellis 118 coding scheme assigns one unique path to each message once a starting state has been chosen.
[0073] To create a dirty-paper code, the trellis is modified so that multiple alternative codewords can be obtained for each message. The basic idea is to have more than two arcs 120 enter and exit each state, but still use each step of the trellis to encode a single bit. This modified trellis 146 is shown in FIG. 7.
[0074] Assume some number, A, of arcs 120 and some number, S, of states 148. Since there is no reason to privilege one node more than another, A/S arcs 120 exit and enter each state 148. Half of those arcs 120 will encode a 0, illustrated as non-bold arcs 120 a. The other half will encode a 1, illustrated as bold arcs 120 b. There are now many alternative paths in the modified trellis 146 that encode the same message. Suppose we wish to encode an L-bit long message, m. If we do not impose any starting state, the number of codewords, n, which encode the message m is given by:
[0075] As shown in FIG. 18, an encoder according to the present method can select a path from the set of paths through the modified trellis 146 that all represent that message that is to be embedded, generally 178. Conceptually, this can be thought of as being done in two steps. First, the modified trellis 146 is redrawn at 180 to eliminate all paths that do not encode the desired message. This is a simple matter of removing the bold arcs 120 b from steps that should encode 0's, and removing non-bold arcs 120 a from steps that should encode 1's. As a result, every possible path illustrated represents the desired message. An example of such a message-specific modified trellis 150 is shown in FIG. 8.
[0076] Second, the encoder applies the detection algorithm to the original cover work 112, as described above, except that it uses the message-specific modified trellis 150 instead of the complete modified trellis 146. That is, it extracts a vector from the work, shown at 182, and then uses a Viterbi decoding algorithm to find the path through the message-specific modified trellis 150 that yields the highest correlation with that extracted vector, shown at 184. This identifies which of the plethora of codes is to be used to represent the message. This path is then represented by a constructed vector, shown at 186. Once the highest-correlation path through the message-specific modified trellis 150 has been identified, the informed embedding algorithm described above, for example, or another suitable embedding algorithm, can be used to embed the watermark into the cover work 112. During the detection process, the decoder applies the Viterbi algorithm to the entire modified trellis 146. This identifies the path that yields the highest correlation with the watermark. The message is then decoded by looking at the bits represented by the arcs in that path.
[0077] Modified Trellis Structure
[0078] Given the general framework of the algorithm, the number of arcs, A, and states, S, can impact the effectiveness of the embedding method.
[0079] If the number of arcs per state is greater than the number of states (A/S>S), there will be some parallel arcs in the trellis, i.e., there will be several arcs linking the same pair of states. In the extreme case of only a single state, (S=1), all the arcs are parallel arcs as depicted in FIG. 9.
[0080] If the number of arcs per state is equal to the number of states (A/S=S), then the trellis is fully connected, i.e., each state is exactly connected once with itself and every other state.
[0081] If the number of arcs per state is lower than the number of states (A/S<S), not all the states can be reached from any given state. This is the case depicted in FIG. 7 (S=8, A=32).
[0082] Two experiments were performed to investigate how the structure of the trellis influences the effectiveness of the watermarking scheme. In both experiments, a uniformly distributed, random vector simulated the extracted vectors. Each arc of the trellis was represented with a length N=64 vector. Since the experiment sought to examine the effectiveness of informed coding only, the mark output by the coder was blindly embedded with varying strengths, α. Immediately after embedding, the detector was applied to decode the watermark, and the resulting bit error rate (BER) was measured.
[0083] It must be noted that the bit error rate, as opposed to the message error rate, is effected in several different ways by the structure of the trellis. In particular, when the number of arcs per state is lower than the number of states (A/S<S), then whenever an error occurs it may take several steps in the trellis before we return to the correct path. This will introduce burst errors in the decoded messages, increasing the bit error rate. However, since multiple errors should reduce the correlation with the extracted vector, we expect them to happen rarely. In contrast, in a trellis with only one state, whenever an error occurs the decoder can immediately return to the correct path at the next iteration. Thus, in this configuration, a single error does not induce consecutive errors. However, the cost of single errors is less than for burst errors and they may therefore occur more frequently.
[0084] In the first experiment, the number of states was set to 1 (S=1) and number of arcs was varied. According to equation (1.2), this means that the number of codewords representing the same message is varying. The results are shown in FIG. 10. One can observe a very significant reduction in bit error rate as the number of arcs increases from 2 to 64. Performance continues to improve as the number of arcs increases beyond 64, but the improvement is less dramatic. Since computational cost increases with the number of arcs, a good compromise appears to be A=64. This is, however, simply an intuitive choice. Further study could determine an optimum number of arcs to balance between bit error rate and computational overhead. For one state and sixty-four arcs, equation (1.2) yields the number of codewords, n, that encode a message.
[0085] In a second experiment, the number of states and the number of arcs were varied in such a way that the number of codewords representing the same message was kept constant at n=102073.
[0086] The results are shown in FIG. 11. Once again, the error rate quickly drops as the number of states grows before flattening as the number of states exceeds 64. Thus, there seems little advantage in increasing the number of states beyond this point. The two experiments suggest that a configuration of 64 states and 64 arcs per states is a reasonable compromise.
[0087] To demonstrate the improvement due to informed coding, 2000 images were watermarked with informed coding (using a trellis of 64 states and 64 arcs per state) and informed embedding.
[0088] Immediately after embedding, the 2000 images were sent to a watermark detector and the message error rate (MER) was calculated. These results were then compared with the results in which blind coding and informed embedding were applied. The image fidelity is significantly improved with informed coding. To quantify this, the average perceptual distance according to Watson's model was calculated in both cases. The results are summarized in Table I in which we see that the message error rate has been reduced from 12.5% to zero while simultaneously improving the image quality. The average perceptual distance using informed coding is about half that using blind coding.
TABLE I BLIND CODING VERSUS INFORMED CODING Watson distance MER Blind coding + informed embedding 201.06 12.5% Informed coding + informed embedding 101.52 0%
[0089] To examine how much of this performance improvement was due to informed coding alone, a second experiment was performed in which 2000 images were watermarked using informed coding and blind embedding. The blind embedding strength was chosen to yield an average Watson distance of 101, i.e., roughly the same as the previous experiment with informed coding and informed embedding. Once again, the effectiveness of the embedder was measured. These results are summarized in Table II. This shows that our informed coding algorithm alone makes a significant improvement over blind coding, but its effectiveness is not satisfactory without informed embedding.
TABLE II BLIND EMBEDDING VERSUS INFORMED EMBEDDING WITH INFORMED CODING Watson distance MER Informed coding + blind embedding 101.79 56.55% Informed coding + informed embedding 101.52 0%
[0090] Perceptual Shaping
[0091] The combination of informed coding and informed embedding is promising. However, many of the resulting watermarked works, particularly images, still have unacceptable fidelity. To alleviate this problem, a perceptual shaping stage is added to the proposed algorithm, based on Watson's perceptual measure.
[0092] The perceptual shaping is based on the E-PERC-OPT algorithm described in Cox, et al., Digital Watermarking. The basic idea is to shape the difference pattern d used in step 4 of the general informed embedding algorithm, described supra. In an exemplary embodiment, each element of a watermark vector in the present system is a single coefficient from the 8�8 block DCT of an image. However, the elements of the watermark vector may be pixel values, wavelet values, or Fourier Transform coefficients, for example, without departing from the scope of the invention. Watson's model assigns a perceptual "slack" to each element, which indicates how much that element may be changed before becoming perceptually noticeable. The slacks for the low-frequency AC terms 124 can be arranged into a vector, s, such that the i'th component, s[i], is the slack for the i'th element of the extracted vector. The perceptual shaping of d is then performed as
[0093] This results in the vector, d′[i], that yields greatest similarity, one measure of which would be correlation, with d[i] for a given perceptual distance.
[0094] In step 4 of the general informed embedding algorithm, where cw is modified to ensure that R0(cwg,b)≧Rt, the equation (1.1) is no longer used. Rather, cw is now modified as follows:
[0095] where S(d,cw) is a perceptual shaping function computed according to Eq. (1.3).
[0096] This modification of the algorithm is not expected to affect the performance of the watermarking scheme since robustness is inherently ensured by the informed embedding algorithm.
[0097] To evaluate the effect of this perceptual shaping, 2000 images were watermarked with informed coding (64 states and 64 arcs per state), informed embedding and perceptual shaping. The Watson distance between the original and the watermarked images was then computed. A watermark detector was immediately applied to the 2000 watermarked images and the message error rate was computed.
[0098] The results are summarized in Table III. While the message error rate has increased only insignificantly, the perceptual distance between watermarked and unwatermarked images has been reduced three-fold.
TABLE III EFFECT OF PERCEPTUAL SHAPING Watson distance MER Informed coding + informed embedding 101.52 0% Informed coding + informed embedding + 31.6 0.35% perceptual shaping
[0099] However, there are limitations with Watson's model. Some undesirable blocking artifacts appeared along sharp edges, particularly on the right side of the image, where there was a thin black border. This is because Watson's model is block-based and each block is independently examined. Blocks that contain sharp edges contain energy in all frequencies, and are erroneously judged to contain much texture that can mask watermark patterns.
[0100] Robustness
[0101] The experiments described above have examined only the embedding effectiveness of the watermark embedder, i.e., the performance when the watermarked image is not distorted between the times of embedding and detection. In practice, watermarked content will be subjected to a variety of distortions before reaching the detector. Watermarks designed to survive legitimate and everyday usage of content, e.g., low pass filtering, noise, JPEG compression, are referred to as robust watermarks.
[0102] Experiments were conducted to measure the effect of a wide range of distortions on three different watermark algorithms: (i) blind coding, informed embedding, no shaping (BCIENS); (ii) informed coding, informed embedding, no shaping (ICIENS); and (iii) informed coding, informed embedding and shaping (ICIES). Algorithms employing blind embedding were not tested, since they have been found to have unacceptable performance even without image distortions. We report robustness results for addition of Gaussian noise, low pass filtering, valumetric scaling, and JPEG compression. For each class of distortion, the 2000 watermarked images were modified with a varying magnitude of distortion. The message error rate was then computed. We considered the watermarking scheme to be robust if at least 80% of the watermarks were correctly retrieved, i.e. the message error rate is below 20%.
[0103] Gaussian Noise
[0104] Normally distributed noise with mean=0 and standard deviation σ was added to each of the watermarked images. The experiment was repeated for different standard deviations, σ, and the message error rate has been computed. The results are summarized in FIG. 12. Notice that the two schemes that use informed coding—ICIENS (no perceptual shaping) and ICIES (with perceptual shaping)—have quite similar performance. This is because the perceptual shaping does not interfere with informed embedding, as explained above. Remember, however, that images embedded using the ICIES algorithm have substantially better fidelity.
[0105] The gain obtained by introducing informed coding is quite noticeable. If we establish a threshold at a message error rate of 20%, then blind coding with informed embedding and no shaping (BCIENS) is robust against additive Gaussian noise with standard deviation, σ, of only 3.25 or less. In contrast, the two informed coding methods are robust to standard deviations up to 6.5.
[0106] Low Pass Filtering
[0107] All three watermarking schemes tested use only low frequency DCT coefficients. As a result, they can be expected to be quite resilient against low pass filtering. To verify this, the watermarked images were filtered with Gaussian filters of width σg. The experiment was repeated for different values of σg and the message error rate computed.
[0108]FIG. 13 summarizes the results. Once again, the informed coding methods have similar performance and the improvement between blind coding and informed coding is clear. With blind coding, the message error rate reaches 20% with a Gaussian filter of width σg=0.7. In contrast, with informed coding, the images can be filtered with a Gaussian filter of width σg=1.5 before the same message error rate is reached.
[0109] Valumetric Scaling
[0110] Another simple, but important distortion is changing amplitude. That is
[0111] where c is an image and v a scaling factor. This corresponds to a change of brightness and contrast for images and video. This attack is of particular interest for us, and was indeed a main weakness of prior informed watermarking schemes.
[0112] Two tests were performed. The first reduced the image intensities, i.e. v varied from 1 to 0.1. The second experiment increased the image intensities as v increased from 1 to 2.
[0113] The results of the first test are summarized in FIG. 14. As usual, the two informed coding methods have very similar performance and are superior to the blind coding method. The results clearly demonstrate that the watermarking schemes described herein are resilient against valumetric scaling down. Whatever watermarking scheme is chosen, its performance remains the same down to a scaling factor of 0.1.
[0114] A scaling with a factor of 0.1 produced serious image degradation. An example of a scaled image with such a scaling factor is almost completely black. However, even if the distorted image is much darker, the hidden message is still correctly extracted. This is because valumetric scaling multiplies all the correlation scores by the same scaling factor (modulo some rounding). As a result, the best path along the trellis remains the same.
[0115] A second test investigated the robustness of our watermarking methods to valumetric scaling for 1≦v≦2. FIG. 15 summarizes the results. Once more, the two informed coding methods have similar performance and significantly out-perform the blind coding method. While the blind coding method survives scaling by a factor of v≈1.1, the two informed coding methods remain robust for scale factors up to v=1.3.
[0116] The robustness to scaling intensities up is much worse than the robustness to scaling intensities down. This is because, in addition to rounding, valumetric scaling up introduces some clipping, i.e., all the pixel values above 255 after scaling are truncated to 255. This has a more severe impact than rounding. An image valumetrically scaled up by a factor of v=1.3 is globally brighter, but one can also notice that some textured areas becoming uniformly white after such scaling.
[0117] Lossy Compression
[0118] The effects of JPEG compression were simulated by applying quantization in the DCT domain. The block-DCT transform was computed for each watermarked image. Then, the DCT coefficients were quantized according to the following equation:
[0119] where q is a constant quantization factor, using a different quantization factor for each of the 64 terms. The quantization factors q are obtained by multiplying a global quantization level Q by the matrix of DCT term-specific quantization factors shown in Table V. For example, if Q=2, the DC term is quantized with q=32 and the highest-frequency term with q=198. The more compressed the image, the greater the global quantization level Q. After quantization, the inverse block-DCT was applied. The watermarked images were quantized with different values for the parameter Q and the message error rate was computed.
[0120] The results are summarized in FIG. 16. Again, the two informed coding methods have similar performance and significantly out-perform the blind coding method. The blind encoding method only remains robust for values of Q less than 0.75, while the informed coding methods remain robust for Q≦1.5. The latter value corresponds to a JPEG quality factor of 33%. Lossy compression with a global quantization level Q=1.5 yields an image fidelity that is very much degraded.
[0121] Disclosed is a method for informed encoding and informed embedding of watermark signals in a work. Note that the advantages and benefits of this disclosed watermarking system remain with the watermarked work even when it is transferred to the analog domain.
[0122] The method may be carried out using conventional computer apparatus, or with a dedicated apparatus, either modular or integrated. The method may also be programmed for machine execution and stored on machine-readable media.
[0123] The invention has been described herein with reference to a particular exemplary embodiment. Certain alterations and modifications may be apparent to those skilled in the art, without departing from the scope of the invention. The exemplary embodiment is not meant to be limiting on the scope of the invention, which is defined by the appended claims.
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|U.S. Classification
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|4 Apr 2002
Owner name: NEC RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC., NEW JERSEY
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